Exploring Data in a Data Source View (Analysis Services)

You can use the Explore Data dialog box in Data Source View Designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio to browse data for a table, view, or named query in a data source view. When you explore the data in Data Source View Designer, you can view the contents of each column of data in a selected table, view, or named query. Viewing the actual contents assists you in determining whether all columns are needed, if named calculations are required to increase user friendliness and usability, and whether existing named calculations or named queries return the anticipated values.

To view data, you must have an active connection to the data source or sources for the selected object in the data source view. Any named calculations in a table are also sent in the query. You can view the data returned in table, pivot table, chart, and pivot chart formats. You can also control the sample method, the sample count and the states per chart. For example, by default the top 5000 rows are returned and a maximum of 20 states per chart.